You can now pay more to still see ads on X

When Elon Musk originally announced his $8 paid blue check accounts, Twitter Blue, shortly after buying the social media company now called X in late 2022, one of the big selling points was that those users would see half as much advertising.

Of course, like many things Elon Musk has said, that wasn’t really true, because it only applied to “for you” and “following” timelines. When Blue subscribers went to other spots on the site and in the app, they still saw the same number of ads.

Now, though, Musk is hawking a $14 Premium+ tier that’s “fully ad-free.” The X post announcing the feature says “no more ads, anywhere on X” — but guess what? Even that’s not 100% true. If you go to sign up for Premium+, you’ll see that X itself says people with that subscription will still see "occasional branded content in less common areas.”

And of course, if you’re really reading between the lines, you might note that not showing users ads might have something to do with companies not wanting to advertise on the site in the first place. Musk is currently suing an advertising coalition for boycotting the site.